A former Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) employee is threatening to sue the state. Whistleblower Scott Smith claims he was retaliated against and eventually pushed out of his job for telling the truth about the state’s hotly contested cap-and-trade program.
Jackson Maynard is counsel for Smith, whose claims are front and center in a bombshell demand letter sent to state leaders this week.
"As my client said, this was a matter of sixth-grade math," said Maynard. "It was just a matter of adding things up, and they didn’t want him to provide that accurate information."
Detailed in the document, are allegations that superiors deliberately told Smitt to "omit the impact of Washington State’s cap-and-trade program on fuel price estimates starting in January of this year. You will recall that during this time, the Governor was repeatedly claiming there was no impact on fuel prices from this program and was instead blaming the fuel industry for the increased costs."
Governor Jay Inslee is on the record saying, "This is going to have a minimal impact – if any. Pennies. We are talking about pennies. Potentially, not all of this would be passed off to the consumer and what they would, would be pennies."
